As a vestibular therapist, I get this question a lot. Here’s how it usually goes: you wake up one morning and you’re DIZZY. It may be the easy to explain kind - the world is spinning! It may be the more vague, hard to describe kind - it’s kind of like being on a boat, or someone is gently pushing you to the side, or the ground just won’t stay DOWN where it should…
However your journey starts, it usually takes you (fairly quickly!) to a doctor, who then says some word you’ve never heard of and directs you to me. As you walk into our office, you wonder how being dizzy meant you are now sitting in a physiotherapy clinic.
One of the wonderfully unique things about physical therapists is we are awesome at training bodies to do things differently. That may be revamping your squat so your back doesn’t kill, retraining your pelvic floor muscles so you don’t pee a little when you laugh or changing your brain so the world doesn’t spin or tip around you.
Your balance centres get input from three main sources:
Visual System: your eyes, telling you where things are
Vestibular System: your ears, telling you where your head is in space and how far and fast it moves
Somatosensory/Proprioceptive System: all those little nerve endings in your feet, knees and hips telling you what you’re touching, what your muscles are doing and what position your joints are in
If all three of these bits of information match, congratulations! Your world is probably very much stable and in focus. If one of these is giving you the wrong information, it can throw your world for a loop.
Pretend for a second your ears are telling you are turning in a circle but your eyes and feet disagree. Chaos quickly ensues in your brain - fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and blurry vision plague you. Bold patterns, bright lights and contrasting colours drive you nuts. You lean or veer to one side, and forget doing anything in the dark without needing to hold the walls. To add insult to injury, it’s almost as if someone has replaced your brain with cotton and anything requiring concentration is close to impossible.
These are all common symptoms of a vestibular disorder, something that hits 35% of us aged 40 or older. As a vestibular therapist I will watch you walk, test your balance, and check out what your eyes are doing in both room light and in the dark. Through these tests, I can get a good read on what’s going on in your vestibular system and give you exercises specifically designed to challenge and improve its function.
Just like retraining a squat, I can change your brain so you aren’t dizzy anymore. If you’d like to learn more, head on over to the Vestibular Disorders Association’s website - it’s a great resource for sufferers and health care professionals alike. If you’re suffering from dizziness and think this might be worth a go, give us a shout!